476 Lisa Cherney:

Crises always give us a choice. We can hunker down in fear, let uncertainty immobilize us we can use the time to look within, connect deeply with ourselves and what we truly want from our lives and our businesses – and connect more deeply and in a new authentic way.

MELINDA

I’m Melinda Wittstock and today on Wings of Inspired Business we change up the format a bit to first talk about the Coronavirus and ways you can meet the challenge that has turned our world upside down – and then with our inspiring guest Lisa Cherney – host of the ground-breaking confession-based GFR (Get F’n Real) podcast and creator of the 12 GFR Commandments.

I can’t wait to share my conversation with Lisa Cherney, who has been mentoring millionaire entrepreneurs for over 20 years, and shares her commandments to help you get in authentic alignment – something I think we’re all being called to do at this time.

Everything is slowing down and it’s an opportunity to use the time to think about … and take action … on what you are going to do in your business to meet rapidly changing circumstances.

Maybe it’s the perfect time to tackle that “someday” project. Today is that day. Or perhaps you are in triage right now pivoting your business – and fast. How to turn a retreat or a conference into a virtual conference that still connects people. How to turn a retail shop front into a e-commerce offers.  How to handle disruptions to the supply chain. And how to keep our teams safe and healthy, and how in many cases to make payroll. These are all BIG challenges for any entrepreneur.

Here’s where I am more optimistic than most.

Entrepreneurs thrive on change. Change presents new opportunities. It’s about quieting the mind enough to let the inspirations flow through … to become at peace with accepting and capitalizing on change … It’s about adhering steadfast to your vision … not the circumstance. I’m going to repeat it again – keep your eyes on the vision, not the circumstance.

We may never go back to the “old normal”. So much has changed so fast it is dizzying. And its not looking like a short blip. It WILL bring many permanent changes. Your job as a female founder and entrepreneur is to leverage your authentic feminine power … and use the opportunity to remake your business in a way that aligns with you… and in a way that will embrace many changes coming in a positive way, a proactive way, a way that will create unmeasurable value if you use this time to seize it.

And because this IS your time, I’m inviting those of you who have put off launching a podcast. It was one your “to-do” list for “some time” and now is the perfect opportunity because the world needs your unique voice and your unique solution right now. My mission is to help you find your voice, find the customers you want to attract, all with a magnetic, mission-driven and profitable podcast. If that calls you, I’m forming groups right now to work with me to get their podcasts launched in 12 weeks. More information at MelindaWittstock.com/launch-podcast.

Now to Lisa Cherney. We recorded our conversation weeks before the Coronavirus hit – and as you listen you’ll get much wisdom that is uncannily aligned with our current predicament.

Lisa has been mentoring millionaire entrepreneurs for over 20 years. She is the host of the ground-breaking confession-based GFR (Get F’n Real) podcast and creator of the 12 GFR Commandments. In 2014, after 15 years in business and speaking on over 750 stages, Lisa Cherney got f’n real and dismantled her successful 7-Figure business as the Juicy Marketing Expert. Lisa learned that just because something is successful and people like it, doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it.

Lisa says she always knew she had a low tolerance for not being happy (after all she left a “successful” corporate career, with companies like AT&T and Lipton at age 28), but now she knows her mission is way more than marketing. She teaches soulful entrepreneurs how to get out of their own way and be unapologetically themselves, so they can help more people, make more money, and have more freakin’ fun!

So let’s put on our Wings with Lisa Cherney.

Melinda Wittstock:         Lisa, welcome to Wings.

Lisa Cherney:                    I’m so glad to be here, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:         Me too. I mean you have been mentoring millionaire entrepreneurs for some time now and, in that process, you came up with these amazing GFR Commandments, all about getting effing real. Authenticity is the name of the game and yet a lot of people really misunderstand what authenticity actually means in marketing. What does it mean to you?

Lisa Cherney:                    It is an overused word, I think. So it tends to almost gloss over what we’re really trying to inspire. When I say it, I’m actually using a new word now, unapologetic. I love it. It’s such a juicy word. It’s so edgy. It’s permission-giving. If you apply that to your marketing, what I find is it inspires people to be on their soapbox, Melinda. I think soapboxes have a bad rap. I think everybody should feel confident to jump up onto their soapbox and shout from that soapbox, shout from the rafters their thing, the way that they’re really wanting to help and move people or move companies.

Lisa Cherney:                    When we hold back, we’re just dimming our light. I don’t think we could do that anymore, Melinda. I think those of us that have these soapboxes, these passions, we’re trying to make a difference, the time is now. That’s why the F is in the Get Real because the time is now. It’s activating. There’s urgency.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. There really is. I believe that’s true. I mean I see so many people tragically living out their lives doing all the things they think they have to do to please everybody else, especially women. As they go through that, that life of should’s, apologizing along the way. Do you think women are more likely to apologize or put themselves last than men? If so, why?

Lisa Cherney:                    I’ve done a lot of thinking about this because I have met a lot of men recently that are coming to a place in their life where they are realizing that they do not take care of their own needs. I think what’s common in men is that instead of … Our heart is on our sleeve, so we’re apologizing. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t do that.” They’re just apologizing for existing sometimes. I think men, they keep it inside and they just don’t say the thing. They don’t push back. They just stuff it down. So I think you could make a generalization probably. There’s probably data to back it up that it’s more women. But I think it’s a hidden epidemic with men as well.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. Yeah. I guess it just manifests differently.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yes, yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         I mean I don’t know. I started life Canadian. So that means there’s an inherent apology in everything. It took me a long time to even be conscious of the fact that I was going through saying, “Hey, sorry,” just in casual conversation and saying it when I wasn’t sorry actually. It was just kind of part of the culture in a weird way.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yeah. I actually spent two years living in Minnesota and I used to call it Minnesota Nice. There would just be this … And I’m from New Jersey. That’s also where the F-word comes from. You just didn’t wonder what people were thinking in New Jersey. There was just this frankness that’s so refreshing. I really, really love it. In Minnesota, I just felt like, “Dammit, just say the thing.” Everybody would just be like, “Pardon me.” We’d go to the movies and there’d be two windows open and one would have a line. The other one would not have a line at all. Nobody questioned it. They would just get on the line and just assume there was a reason that nobody was on the other line.

Lisa Cherney:                    And then here, the lady from Jersey would come and be like, “All right. If no one’s going to be on that line, I’m going to go over there.” People, they just were so much more habituated to going with the crowd.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. That’s hilarious. I just remembered something. When I was a kid, I used to do these … I guess I was a weird kid. I used to do these things where I would experiment. If I stared at a ceiling in the elevator, before long, everyone else was staring at the ceiling in the elevator, right?

Lisa Cherney:                    Yes. Yes. I think I would have liked to have you as a friend as a kid. That’s awesome.

Melinda Wittstock:         Because I mean it’s always been fascinating to me, that kind of crowd behavior. I think for women too I think our biggest, most existential fear perhaps underlying all of this is that we want to belong. The worst thing would be cast out of the tribe. We worry a lot about what other people think of us.

Lisa Cherney:                    We do. We really do. For those of you that are listening that have a business or a way you want to express in the world that you feel is an integral part of our fulfillment in life, I just don’t think that we could do that. I feel like that our own evolution or journey of speaking up, taking a stand, being okay that not everybody likes us because actually … Talk about polarizing. The name of my show is super polarizing. I had a lot of people tell me, “I don’t …” Colleagues and people that I trust like, “I don’t know if you should do that, Lisa.” It took me some soul searching, which I think now is totally part of the birthing process for me.

Lisa Cherney:                    I was like, “You know what? Darn it. It is me. It feels fun. I want to activate. I want to say that word. I’m open to attracting people that are up for that. If they’re not, that’s okay with me. I don’t want to wait till I’m turned …” I turn 50 in a couple years. But you know that women say, “In your 50s, you really start caring. Or in your 60s.” I don’t want to wait.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right. This is really true. This is a big trend I see in entrepreneurship where women finally step into their own in their 50s. But why wait? Why wait?

Lisa Cherney:                    I don’t think we could afford to wait if we really want to see the payoff of helping people and making changes in the way that we want to.

Melinda Wittstock:         Well, so much about change though is being the change we want to see in the world. We could be in a spotlight or we can be the lighthouse.

Lisa Cherney:                    Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right? You were incredibly brave, Lisa. You walked away from a very, very successful business. For a long time you were running a very successful seven-figure business as the juicy marketing expert. You’re obviously extremely good at marketing, way ahead of the game. What was it that made you say, “You know what, that’s not for me,” and walk away from something that was succeeding?

Lisa Cherney:                    It’s a profound awareness that I had and that is I was not having fun.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right. Well, that’s no good.

Lisa Cherney:                    It’s not.

Melinda Wittstock:         Because you have one life.

Lisa Cherney:                    It is not no good, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right. You have one life. So if it’s not fun, why do it?

Lisa Cherney:                    We say stuff like that, right? We say stuff like that and we do believe it, but how many of us are willing to truly take a stand for fun and joy and let go of things that do not feel that way? It takes some courage.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. It really does. What was the moment? Can you take me back there? Just that day or that hour or that minute where you said, “Okay, enough, no, I got to do something else.”

Lisa Cherney:                    I had a community called Six-Figure University that had, I think there was about 75 people in this yearlong program. People had been in multiple years. We do twice-a-year retreats. It’s like my joyful place. I love being in a live workshop setting and creating that container for people. I loved that part. But there was all the part about getting the butts in seats for the events and doing the launches, which I’m allergic to that word. I will never do that again. That I just didn’t want to do. So I had this thing that people loved and was successful.

Lisa Cherney:                    I mean there was certain parts that I loved, but I didn’t love the whole thing. I just one day said, “I can’t be teaching people to create a business that they love,” and one of my taglines was full-time prosperity, part-time hours, which I did have part-time hours but I was paying a dear price for the overhead. So I needed to scale up if I wanted to be even more profitable. I just wasn’t willing to do any of the things that I knew I needed to do and that was a big red flag for me. It’s like when someone says, “I don’t want my boss’ job.” Well, that’s a red flag for me. You need to start looking elsewhere.

Lisa Cherney:                    I have always had this low tolerance for not being happy. It kind of sounds over-simplistic, but it means that I wasn’t the type of person or I’m not the type of person that could have stayed. So one day I just said, “You know what? I’m out of integrity.” Here’s the poignant part, which I think will be great teaching for somebody that feels like they’re in something that they need to leave and they just don’t know what they’re going to do next. I quit trying to figure out what I was going to do instead. I said, “I’ve done enough positives and negatives and SWOT analyses and talked with my bookkeeper. I’ve done all of that, the logical stuff.”

Lisa Cherney:                    But the truth is, doesn’t matter what any of the outcome of that is, I can’t stay doing this. It doesn’t really matter. Once I made a decision, without knowing what I was going to do next or how it was even going to unravel, that opened up such clarity for me. Confessions bring clarity is my new motto. Confessions bring clarity. I then began to see what I needed to do and how it could go. I’ll never forget the day I stood on the stage of my retreat and I told my clients, who were bright-eyed and shiny and traveled from all over the world to be there, that this was the last retreat that I was doing. I was terrified. You know what, Melinda?

Lisa Cherney:                    They thanked me for my authenticity and my courage and for modeling and taking a stand for the very thing that I was teaching. Of course, they were bummed. But they had even more respect for me. That was so healing.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s wonderful. What was the epiphany about the confession? Because a confession is so much part of the whole GFR program, right? What was the confession? Did you have some sort of divine download? I’m sorry. I’m just going to ask that again. So what was the spark or the epiphany that led you to this confessions being clarity? What was your confession to yourself?

Lisa Cherney:                    The confession to myself at that time was a really quiet voice in my head that said, “This is not fun.” So many times, Melinda, we had those thoughts that flowed in and they’re profound. They’re our inner voice, our heart, our soul, whatever your belief system is, trying to speak to us. They just float right out as if a breeze blew it away because it’s so scary to even think about.

Melinda Wittstock:         Wow. Yeah. It is. Well, I mean because we have … As business owners, we have an obligation to our team, our clients, and our families and all this sort of thing. So to say, “God, I’m not having fun,” the repercussions of that. We worry about the impact on everybody else.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         And yet in your confession to your clients, it was freeing not only for you but also for them.

Lisa Cherney:                    It really was. I got to see that me speaking my truth … We have these 12 GFR Commandments, and commandment number three is don’t worry about being normal, proper, or polite. The confession question is where am I not speaking my truth? So in me speaking my truth, I really got to see actually that I was more living my mission than ever before by speaking my truth and they got what they needed. Everybody around us is served. I believe they are served, even if it doesn’t feel that way to them right away, when we take care of ourselves.

Melinda Wittstock:         Absolutely right. I think our own self-care, I mean we’re the number one asset in our businesses. So if we’re not happy and we’re not creating from a place of joy or we’re not enjoying, I don’t know what kind of business you can really create. I don’t know how that business can really thrive without the founder and the founders really being in alignment, having fun, all those sorts of things. So yeah. I mean I don’t know. I come at this with this perspective of being a serial entrepreneur where I’m on my fifth business.

Melinda Wittstock:         I know the difference between the ones that are really in alignment where it’s so much fun and the ones that are, I don’t know, like pushing a boulder up a mountain. You think, “God.” For every couple steps forward, you get kicked in the head, those kinds.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yes, yes. I bet though that they weren’t all not successful. The ones that aren’t in alignment don’t all immediately appear to be unsuccessful, which is part of the challenge.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s the worst part because they succeed.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         They can succeed through the grind and through just doing all the right things because you’re good at business or you’re a talented entrepreneur, whatever. You have a good solution to a problem. You tick all those boxes, but there’s not a flow. They’re harder.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yes, totally. I totally agree.

Melinda Wittstock:         What’s so interesting about being in alignment and having that clarity and doing the thing that really makes your sing is there is synchronicities and things like that that start to show up. That’s been my experience.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yes. Totally. Absolutely. When you asked me earlier about my biggest frustration and I said it’s overcoming that pushing and striving and stressing, that’s such a habit that we have. The opposite is resting into the flow, enjoying the synchronicities, trusting the right resources and clients are going to find you, trusting that if you do what feels good it’s going to wind up being lucrative. It’s a scary experiment. But I’ve been on that experiment for a couple years and it is paying off in abundance in all ways.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s wonderful. Let’s get into the commandments. I want to know all the commandments. But there’s one in particular that I’m really intrigued by, number five, make yourself the most important client. Tell me how you landed at that one and what that means.

Lisa Cherney:                    All of these commandments, just to give people a little backstory. I have been doing this mentoring thing for mission-driven entrepreneurs for 20 years. A couple years ago when I was like, “Okay, what is the new space I want to hold for people?” I was doing some journaling and doing some research into my old notes and everything. I realized, you know what? There’s actually 12 things that I say over and over again, 12 ways that I see the mission-driven entrepreneur, which we’ve a very unique breed, get in our own way to the point where it means that we’re not using the investments that we’ve made and the systems and the blueprints and the tools or the advisors because we are in our own way.

Lisa Cherney:                    We’re not doing the good that we want in the world. So that’s how these 12 GFR Commandments were birthed. Each commandment has a confession question because I’m a trainer in my foundation and I just want people to be able to inquire, kind of make it like a workbook type process. I love number five, which is make yourself your most important client because I swear to you, to this day, I say it at least once a day for my clients. I communicate with my clients throughout the day. Often I use the Boxer app or texting or whatever. I love that consistent connection.

Lisa Cherney:                    I swear I say it once a day because the truth is is that when we are mission-driven, often our own personal evolution is expressed through our business, which means that when we’re coming up against something that feels hard or there’s resistance, we actually need to look at our own work. I have a whole pod of gals that all had crappy days and they said, “You know what? We’re doing a self-care day.” One does bodywork and one does NLP. They’re just all doing their own work with themselves. That’s the commandment number five. The confession question, so you can see if it’s one for you, everyone, is if I was my own client, what would I tell myself? What else would I tell myself?

Lisa Cherney:                    So whatever you’re coming up against, even just play with it. It’s pretty universally helpful.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s so interesting. I’m thinking that through in terms of how I would apply that in my context right now. It’s a very thought-provoking question and very original.

Lisa Cherney:                    So are you getting some insight?

Melinda Wittstock:         Okay. Lisa, let me get real here. I am in the middle of launching a very, I guess, disruptive innovation in the podcasting space. For the first time, a place where podcasters can actually profit from their content and understand their audiences, their first time for listeners in their pockets to be able to have an app where they can connect with their friends and find great content and interact with it and win rewards and cool products and all kinds of awesome stuff as they interact with their favorite podcasts, as they put lessons learned in action, improve their lives and as they do mission-driven challenges together and all of this.

Melinda Wittstock:         If I was my own client, let’s see, what would I tell myself?

Lisa Cherney:                    Well, do you have a particular challenge that’s coming up in the launching of this innovative thing that might feel a teeny bit frustrating at times?

Melinda Wittstock:         Well, nothing that’s frustrating. It’s just that kind of early-stage thing where you’ve got a lot of different pieces of the puzzle and everything has to meet at the same time.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yeah. So you’ve got a lot of balls that you’re juggling.

Melinda Wittstock:         Lots of balls in the air, lots of spinning plates and everything-

Lisa Cherney:                    So here’s the experiment.

Melinda Wittstock:         … and hiring and everything all at once.

Lisa Cherney:                    So if you were your own client, what would you tell yourself? What would you advise yourself?

Melinda Wittstock:         Have fun, enjoy.

Lisa Cherney:                    Yes. So if you were to have more fun with it, so if you were to take your own advice, which would be to have fun, and you think about an overwhelm spot that you might have been in lately, is there a way that you can lighten it up?

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. That’s what I do. I mean I’m a believer in radical self-care.

Lisa Cherney:                    You might need to bump it up. With this intensity that you’re at, you might need to … You’re already awesome at it, but you might need to take it to another level.

Melinda Wittstock:         I’m saying to clients and customers, “This is a very collaborative platform,” and I love to co-create with customers. I really believe that a lot of people launch too late in the sense that they wait for it to be perfect and they don’t get that early input of their customers. So I think maybe the answer has something to do with just checking in with myself a little bit more regularly as well because you can just go into, “Oh my God. This has to be done. This had to be done. This has to be done.” I know better, but I still find myself going there.

Lisa Cherney:                    Perfect. You did it. You got it.

Melinda Wittstock:         Okay. That’s it. Checking in with myself. See, this is amazing process. I could see this going deeper and deeper and deeper and asking these questions over and over and over again until you … What is some of the other ones? What are your other favorites?

Lisa Cherney:                    Okay. Well, I think one that’s kind of related to what we’re talking about but comes at it from a different angle is number six, which is have faith in yourself and your mission. Here’s the juicy part, which is the confession question is what would I do differently if I had faith in myself and my mission?

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah, that’s a great one, because you would probably just go a little slower. You’d be less stressed. I mean literally you would have faith that it’s all going to work out.

Lisa Cherney:                    It’s so true. I have this community called the GFR Squad, people that are into these commandments and listen to my show and stuff. So once a month we do a confession call and we pick one of the commandments. When we did number six, I thought that people would be saying, “I would open up that boutique that I’ve always wanted to,” or, “I would sell everything and go live on Bali if I believed in my mission.” Honestly, mostly what they said was how they would do it differently in a day-to-day basis, just like you said.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. I think when we get into the sense of rushing where it all has to be done immediately or whatever, there’s a scarcity driving that somewhere. There’s a fear driving it, right?

Lisa Cherney:                    Absolutely, fear. Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s the fear. So I think that confession six is really addressing the fear, it feels like to me, because we all have these unknown drivers. We talk about this a lot on this podcast, that what are that iceberg that’s all our subconscious beliefs, all the stories we told ourselves when we were kids as we reacted to challenges or negative things or things that we heard or whatever. They drive us unconsciously. I’m always trying to figure out what’s the fear. Is there a fear in there? Is there a scarcity? Is there a lack underneath something that I have to let go?

Lisa Cherney:                    That really is the inspiration behind the 12 GFR Commandments and the confession questions. I call it the roadmap for getting real. It’s not a 12-step, do it in order kind of thing. It’s read them, read those confession questions, and see which one hits you in the gut. That’s the one to contemplate, to write on, to meditate on. I find that it will get at. It’s going to get at the fear, the resistance, and really the place to grow.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. Amazing. I love just returning to this whole idea of being unapologetic. I love it because it really is a different definition of authenticity in the sense that we have the courage or the bravery or whatever just to be ourselves and to accept that who we are as people is enough. It’s enough. It’s just figuring out how to be more of who you actually are already.

Lisa Cherney:                    It is about allowing yourself to be-

Melinda Wittstock:         Allowing yourself to be.

Lisa Cherney:                    … who you are.

Melinda Wittstock:         Okay. So yeah. In order to do that, you have to get rid of all the fear, all the stuff, all the fear. The fear often is fear of success, I think, that women have. We talk about it as fear of failure, but do you think we’re sort of afraid of success? We’re afraid that if we shine our light too bright or we succeed too much maybe we won’t have a man or maybe our friends won’t like us or we’ll be cast out of the tribe. Do you think that’s a big driver for women?

Lisa Cherney:                    I would also say an aspect of that is fear of being seen. It’s a really significant thing to put yourself out there in whatever level of authenticity or unapologetic-ness that you’re willing to do that and to get the response. I’m still waiting for some big backlash and some people picketing my house for my GFR show. These are the things. These are the fears that we have. That’s what really inspired my show, Melinda, which is all these … It’s entrepreneurs that come on. It’s called Straight Talk.

Lisa Cherney:                    It’s called the GFR Show, but the tagline is Straight Talk and Confessions from Successful, Soulful Entrepreneurs. It’s stories of people that have been through the wringer and sharing things that you would “think” that they would be embarrassed about or would want to hide, but they’re sharing it because they’re claiming that this was something I needed to go through in order to birth this next thing. Such a great example is a man whose wife passed away suddenly and he found himself completely unprepared. Now he has a company called Prepared Fathers. He confesses more about what led up to his wife’s passing and things that he didn’t see. So he really got raw and vulnerable.

Lisa Cherney:                    It really shows that was necessary struggle for him to create the next phase. It’s just story after story of struggle with a purpose so that we can see these … whatever thing that you think you’re hiding. The first episode of my show, Melinda, is called Who the Eff is Lisa Cherney? I just share I’m lazy. I don’t have a marketing degree. I just share all these things because I feel like if everybody shared their things that they think that they’re coming out about or that they think they need to hide or be embarrassed about, nobody would be embarrassed about any of it.

Melinda Wittstock:         Absolutely. I just realized how long it took me to share about what I went through in my marriage. I was married to a narcissistic alcoholic. He was verbally abusive. This is someone who is a really successful, confident woman that I was believing all the things he was saying about me, that I had no friends and nobody liked me, all this kind of stuff, that really destroyed my confidence.

Melinda Wittstock:         It started to take a toll on my business. It happened so gradually. I hid it for a long time because I was ashamed. How could someone so smart or accomplished or with all these things be in a situation like that? So it’s interesting. And yet, I look back on that now and I’m actually grateful for it because it allowed me, it helped me to heal a lot of the things from my childhood.

Melinda Wittstock:         I mean the only reason that marriage happened is because it was familiar to me because of things from my childhood. So it allows you to heal. I think that struggle is really, really important, whether it’s about your relationship with money or fear of being in the public eye or just taking the leap as an entrepreneur, whatever it is.

Lisa Cherney:                    Absolutely. Absolutely. First I want to thank you for sharing so vulnerably your journey because I know that every time you share it you’re helping somebody and that so much of what you’re creating now is inspired by the triumph, the rising of the phoenix, and all the metaphors.

Melinda Wittstock:         All the ways. Yes, and women in particular, when we do actually connect with each other and help each other from that place of vulnerability, but there’s a strength in that because we give other people permission to share and be supported. I think women sometimes have a hard time asking for help.

Lisa Cherney:                    Oh totally.

Melinda Wittstock:         I know I did.

Lisa Cherney:                    So many of my guests, there’s a gal who shares about how she was wrongfully imprisoned for four years. It was a former husband who was a con artist. The outcome of that is she was away from her kids for that period of time. We have a woman who shares that she was a house prisoner. She was basically, her parents allowed her to be abducted.

Melinda Wittstock:         Wow.

Lisa Cherney:                    It’s unbelievable, but she’s this amazing spiritual teacher now. We talk about bankruptcy. We talk about suicide. We just talk about all kinds of failure. It’s inspiring.

Melinda Wittstock:         Absolutely. Oh my goodness. What were some of the things in your life that you were afraid to share?

Lisa Cherney:                    One of my favorite questions is a podcaster asked me, “What is the thing you want to share that you don’t want to share?”

Melinda Wittstock:         Exactly. I know, right? Because we’re going to walk our own talk on the GFR bizzo, right?

Lisa Cherney:                    Yes. Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         I mean but seriously, because there’s a reason that you have these confessions for other people because there must have been a confession for you.

Lisa Cherney:                    There’s multiple confessions, multiple.

Melinda Wittstock:         I know. I have a long list. I have a long list as well.

Lisa Cherney:                    One of my earlier ones from in my 20s was that I was in a 12-step program for food. It’s called Overeaters Anonymous. I had so much shame about that. When I first became willing to share that with people and one of the first people was my now husband of 25 years on our third date. I shared it with him and I was terrified because I had so much judgment of myself, which really it always comes down to that. I had so much judgment of myself about it. He was so honoring and so loving. I was in that 12-step program for about 15 years until I just decided that my next level of healing was not there.

Lisa Cherney:                    But I can’t say enough about that whole 12-step system. People that have similar addictions or experiences, they will share with me, Melinda. They will confess with me. They will allow that into the sunshine. I believe they’re transformed and they get more clarity when they do that. I believe my life is about being unapologetic and being authentic and being vulnerable and giving other people permission to do the same. Predominantly I believe it’s so that they can do their mission in the world and help people. That’s the [crosstalk 00:43:03] that I’m on. But I can go on and on. If you listen to Who the Eff is Lisa Cherney episode, it’s 20 minutes. It rattles off all of my things.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love it. I love that you’re doing this. It really gives other people permission to do the same. I can only imagine the transformational impact that you have on all the people you work with. You work with entrepreneurs and they come to you. I presume everybody gets blocked in a certain thing or they’re trying to get from six figures to seven or seven to eight or something like that or figuring out their marketing, all those sorts of things that are really kind of on the surface. It sounds like you work pretty deep with them. What are some of the transformations that you’ve seen?

Lisa Cherney:                    Well, one of the most common things I see is that there’s a new generation of entrepreneur that I’m calling the unmentoring generation. It’s those of us that came up through the ranks of investing in all the systems and the blueprints and the formulas which were super helpful because we didn’t have anything. We didn’t really know. But now we need to return to ourselves and feel confident in making our own business decisions and our own intuition and find what of those things really feels like it’s us.

Lisa Cherney:                    That is the thing that I’m finding to be the most focus that I’m putting on folks, predominantly women, is removing the things, not adding anything, but helping them to remove and say no and find their own voice and find their way and all the strategies and all the things that really does bring them joy. What does feel fun? Because we’re just so crappy at it. It’s like a muscle that is completely atrophied, if it ever existed, is what feels good to me? What feels fun? What brings me joy? What am I liking? What am I not liking? We’re just crappy at it. I’m the joy-o-meter. It brings money. That’s the thing.

Lisa Cherney:                    It’s not airy fairy. It’s like if you remove the shackles and you follow the things that work for you, the money comes. The abundance comes. It just does.

Melinda Wittstock:         I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean that’s been 100% consistent with my own experience.

Lisa Cherney:                    Thank you for the validation. The more of us saying it, the better.

Melinda Wittstock:         No. It’s really true. So Lisa, how can people find you and work with you?

Lisa Cherney:                    To get your GFR Commandments, that’s number one. Do that. Go to gfr.life/12, as in the number 12, C, as in the 12 commandments. So gfr.life/12c. Get your commandments and then come over and listen to my show at Get F***ing Real. Be inspired. Use the show as sort of a diet, a beautiful, positive vibe, inspiring diet of people that have done it so that you can keep on your path. And then if you want to work more close with me, go to gfr.life and there’s information in there about how to explore what that looks like.

Melinda Wittstock:         Fantastic. Thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Lisa Cherney:                    You’re very welcome. It was awesome.

Lisa Cherney
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Listen to learn the secrets, strategies, practical tips and epiphanies of women entrepreneurs who’ve “been there, built that” so you too can manifest the confidence, capital and connections to soar to success!
Instantly get Melinda’s Wings Success Formula
Review on iTunes and win the chance for a VIP Day with Melinda